13 May, 2011

We finally got a copy of the Outside Magazine Summer Buyers Guide. There is a short, but very positive, review of the VO Polyvalent:

"Easily the most versatile bike out of dozens tested, the chromoly Polyvalent handles like a dream on long city voyages with as much as 40 pounds on the front rack"

Unfortunately we are currently out of the very popular Polyvalents. Our work on the redesigned fork delayed production by almost 4 months and we ran out of frames. I'm pressing the factory for an accurate delivery date and will post it as soon as we know. We are also looking into a pre-ordering system, but I'm not sure this is a good idea since frames seem never to arrive on schedule. We'll offer the mini-build kits again when the new frames arrive, but we are also considering offering full-build kits, maybe even complete bikes.

Here' a summery of the changes for the next batch:

Larger diameter down tube to make the frame a little stiffer because lots of folks are carrying really big loads on Polyvalents.

Down tube shifter bosses.

Nicer fork bend.

Added low-rider bosses.

Shiny dark green paint.

Note: Due to a Blogger glitch last night the comments to this post (and to posts on thousands of other blogs) seem to have been lost. I can't recover them, so please leave your comment again, if you like. Up to now Blogger has been 100% reliable and maybe they can recover the comments.

Great news, Must be a rock crusher to get good press like that and not have any product available!

Regarding the pre-order; I have seen this on another site, where people pre-order and a deposit is placed. This does a couple of things, one you can use the deposits to cover out of pocket costs when the frames are delivered and two it can help you gauge demand and maybe order extras of the popular sizes. That way you don't get the frames in and sell out of the popular sizes a month later only to have multiples of the slow moving sizes that sit forever! Just so you know I am interested in a 51! ;-)

And a huge thanks to Clever Cycles for readying the VO Polyvalent and Rando bikes for Outside magazine. They have a great store in Portland that focuses on utility and cargo bikes. www.clevercycles.com

Yes on the complete bikes. If you sell a complete Polyvalent thru QBP it could be a great option for people who are want a useful bike and don't have the specialized knowledge or time to pick out the components and accessories from scratch. Perhaps you could even offer a couple different versions (650B for smaller sizes, 700C for taller bikes, and options of upright or drop handlebars).

Hello Chris and team, shiny DARK green paint sounds good, and try to err in the direction of "too dark dark green" rather than "too light dark green": the darker the better, within reason, methinks. dark grey on the 700c sounds good too. The Sparta Cornwall dutch bike from the 90s had a lovely grey color. kinda like the grey (road/commuter?) bike Sascha from Vanilla Cycles has up on his site.

Hi Chris, thinking of complete bikes, I was wondering what derailleurs you would use?From what I can find myself, only campagnolo makes reasonably good looking silver rear derailleurs.What does you guys use?

I use Campy derailleurs on most of my own bikes, but for a complete VO bike we would choose a less expensive option. Maybe a 105 or Tiagra. Or maybe the Microshift model that we have been testing with very good results.

I will probably opt for the 650B version of the Polyvalent when they area available, BUT regarding color I am not sure why some amny prefer muted colors? Black Dark blue Gray! BLAH! I certainly would not go flourescent, but how bout a bright cobalt or Lapis?? Not crazy bout yellow either, but I saw this metallic yellow that has like a hint of green to it, kind of a lemon/limey thing and it was quite striking! Especially with a high gloss top coat!!

I think most people have a rather conservative image of touring bikes, maybe a splash of color would help!!